Global warming games

From Leading scientific journals 'are censoring debate on global warming'

Two of the world's leading scientific journals have come under fire from researchers for refusing to publish papers which challenge fashionable wisdom over global warming.

A British authority on natural catastrophes who disputed whether climatologists really agree that the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, says his work was rejected by the American publication, Science, on the flimsiest of grounds.

A separate team of climate scientists, which was regularly used by Science and the journal Nature to review papers on the progress of global warming, said it was dropped after attempting to publish its own research which raised doubts over the issue.

[...]

Prof Roy Spencer, at the University of Alabama, a leading authority on satellite measurements of global temperatures, told The Telegraph: "It's pretty clear that the editorial board of Science is more interested in promoting papers that are pro-global warming. It's the news value that is most important."

He said that after his own team produced research casting doubt on man-made global warming, they were no longer sent papers by Nature and Science for review - despite being acknowledged as world leaders in the field.

As a result, says Prof Spencer, flawed research is finding its way into the leading journals, while attempts to get rebuttals published fail. "Other scientists have had the same experience", he said. "The journals have a small set of reviewers who are pro-global warming."

[...]

Dr Peiser said the stifling of dissent and preoccupation with doomsday scenarios is bringing climate research into disrepute. "There is a fear that any doubt will be used by politicians to avoid action," he said. "But if political considerations dictate what gets published, it's all over for science."

Keep this in mind the next time someone says xxx scientific group says global warming is fact. I would also apply this to scientists in general. What I mean is that we have to realize that simply because someone wears a lab coat or has some letters like PhD after their name; this does not make them immune from the same temptations and flaws as the rest of mankind. They can still be tempted to ideology over fact, to assumptions and faulty reasoning. While I am not an extreme skeptic and find that position philosophically worthless, we would do well to maintain a position somewhere above blind faith in those who are supposed to be experts.

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